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Dek Unu Magazine Rachel Portesi January 2021

by: Rachel Portesi / Dek Unu Magazine

Publication date: 2021-01-01

Topics: fine art photography, wet plate collodion, tintype, alternative process, Vermont, feminist

Collection: photographymagazinesmisc; photographymagazines; magazine_rack

Item Size: 29.3M

In touch with photography’s Victorian roots, Rachel Portesi uses a very old-fashioned photo medium to examine an array of issues and ideas particularly pertinent to women and women artists both then and now. Her “Hair Portraits” are reminders of the historical role of coiffure as a social signifier communicating everything from age, income, religion, nationality, and marital status to deeply-personal messages about self-image, attitude toward authority, and, sometimes, appetite for adventure! These are adventurous artworks, the unpredictable nature of the wet plate collodion process, and the demands of the time and engineering required to execute Portesi’s portraits, make each image’s appearance in the fixer a surprise, a delight or a disappointment, but Rachel relishes the challenge. Indeed, for her, a large part of the attraction of the tintype process is that, unlike contemporary digital photography, which allows hundreds of exposures per hour with the ready option of perfecting edits in Photoshop, tintype is one-and-done, the “magical” result is always unique and finished in the final rinse. Like the Victorians, who were famously students of Nature, Portesi integrates natural objects: flowers, leaves, twigs, and vines, in extraordinary, architected, distinctly feminine symbols of patience, wisdom, strength, and creativity.